Sentimental feelings aside, why are old photographs so appealing? In the case of a faded Technicolor Polaroid, is it possible to separate the content from the form?

Maybe we are drawn to pictures that signify simpler times: the comforts of childhood, the reassurance of a past that’s already been processed and explained, the powerful nostalgia for times in which we have not lived. Perhaps there’s something in the texture of the image: the overheated colors and bleached skies, the knowledge that this photograph was a physical object that went out into the world and had a life, even if it wound up in a water-damaged shoebox in your grandfather’s attic.

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Here’s a full-bodied nostalgia song for mint green linoleum floors and glowing dashboards in gigantic cars:

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Paul Anka – Tonight My Love, Tonight
from You Are My Destiny / Tonight My Love, Tonight. RCA, 1957 | buy some Anka